THURSDAY BACKTRACK: Music and news from 60 years ago - week ending 22 July 1961

A new #2 this week from Eden Kane, while 'Temptation' still leads:

Some memorable events (via Wikipedia):

18 July: on the 25th anniversary of Spain's dictator Francisco Franco's rise to power, Basque separatist and Marxist group ETA (brief history above) attempts to derail a train carrying military veterans. Franco's response is large-scale arrests and trials of the activists, who in turn escalate their campaign. In 1973 ETA assassinates his Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco who had been tipped to succeed Franco in due course. After Franco dies in 1975 Spain begins its transition to democracy; such support as exists domestically and in France for ETA declines.

(Image source) Europa, representing the ideal of Continental unity (and holding a lead to the bull - Zeus in disguise - that abducted her in Greek mythology), is told to 'be patient, everything takes time.'
EWG stands for 'Europäische Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft', German for 'European Economic Community.'
The sapling that will grow to support the other end of Europa's hammock is 'Political Co-operation.'

18 July: at a meeting in Bad Godesderg, Bonn (capital of what was then West Germany), the leaders of the six nations making up the European Economic Community since the Treaty of Rome in 1957 agree the Bonn Declaration committing the group to further integration and enlargement. 

   It was not only trade that united them: Euratom was also agreed in 1957, to share resources on atomic energy; and in July 1961 De Gaulle was already envisioning a common defence policy: “There can be no European unity if Europe does not constitute a political entity distinct from other entities. A personality. But there can be no European personality if Europe does not have control over the defense of its personality. Defense is always the basis of politics.” (See here, page 101, or 109 online.)

   These developments aroused concern in the British Prime Minister, "Harold Macmillan, alarmed not least of all by the danger of an autonomous foreign and defense policy organization of the Six, announced in the House of Commons on 31 July that he would seek to negotiate Britain’s entry into the EEC." (Ibid., page 105, or 113 online.)

Liberty Bell 7 too heavy, had to be ditched

21 July: Astronaut Gus Grissom nearly drowns. The capsule door opens prematurely and seawater floods in; Grissom gets out and swims, but water is getting in through his suit's inlet valve and air being forced out through his neck dam. He is rescued just in time and winched up, but the capsule now weighs too much for the helicopter to take it away; it is eventually recovered by ship in 1999.

UK chart hits, week ending 22 July 1961

Htp: Clint's labour-of love compilation https://www.sixtiescity.net/charts/61chart.htm

1	Temptation	The Everly Brothers	Warner Brothers
2	Well I Ask You	Eden Kane	Decca
3	Hello Mary Lou / Travellin' Man	Ricky Nelson	London
4	Runaway	Del Shannon	London
5	Halfway To Paradise	Billy Fury	Decca
6	A Girl Like You	Cliff Richard and The Shadows	Columbia
7	You Don't Know	Helen Shapiro	Columbia
8	Pasadena	The Temperance Seven	Parlophone
9	You Always Hurt The One You Love	Clarence 'Frogman' Henry	Pye
10	Romeo	Petula Clark	Pye
11	Time	Craig Douglas	Top Rank
12	Don't You Know It	Adam Faith	Parlophone
13	Baby I Don't Care / Valley Of Tears	Buddy Holly	Coral
14	Surrender	Elvis Presley	RCA
15	Weekend	Eddie Cochran	London
16	But I Do	Clarence 'Frogman' Henry	Pye
17	Runnin' Scared	Roy Orbison	London
18	Quarter To Three	The U.S. Bonds	Top Rank
19	Old Smokie / High Voltage	Johnny and The Hurricanes	London
20	More Than I Can Say	Bobby Vee	London